Tagged: muffins

Last week I did actually take photos of my Monday eats, as I typically do for my WIAW posts, and they were ready to go, but I was soooo exhausted on Tuesday I was like…I can’t blog…I need sleep. It’s hard to admit it, but I think this whole being less than a month out from delivering a baby thing is starting to catch up with me! I’m still working out regularly, but I’m definitely noticing that I’m getting tired much sooner than I used to. Also, now that we’ve gone from 50 degrees to 80 degrees and humid…I’ve definitely noticed a little puffiness in my hands and feet. Blergh. But we’re at 29 days and counting until my due date!! The nursery is all set (I’ll share pics soon!), my hospital bag is alllllmost totally packed (just need to pop in some snacks and I’m waiting for some nursing tanks to arrive in the mail) and this little munchkin is doing somersaults ALL. DAY. LONG…so I’m pretty sure she’s ready to make her grand entrance soon, too!!

Anywho, enough baby talk, here is my Monday of eats!

Breakfast: It’s been about a month since my banana chocolate chip muffins have made an appearance, or since we’ve let bananas sit for long enough without getting eaten that I could make muffins. So here they are in all of their muffiny glory! And of course some decaf english breakfast tea. 😀

Snack: I was really in the mood for some cantaloupe this week….soooooooooooo I bought one. Bam. Delicious.

Lunch: For lunch Monday I had a big bowl of my corn and black beans salad that I made on Monther’s Day. It’s probably my favorite salad ever. And I’m just now remembering I promised to send the recipe to my friend Allison and totes forgot. *sigh* Fail.

More Snacks: I’m pretty sure I had a string cheese at some point on Monday, and I’ve pretty much stopped taking pics of my string cheese because honestly…how many photos of string cheese can one person have on her phone? Seriously. But I also nommed on some ants on a log because they’re awesome and a few triscuits, too.

Dinner: Dinner on Monday was Mac & Cheese. Oh golly. I wish I didn’t love this stuff so, so much. It’s funny – I always go back and forth on the best time to eat Mac & Cheese. I picked Monday this week because we were taking the night off from the gym. Sometimes I think I should make it on a night we DO go to the gym…ya know…so I’m burning it off. But at the same time I really like to make sure that I’m feeding my body appropriately after a workout. I just wouldn’t feel right eating a bowl (okay…two bowls) of Mac & Cheese after doing a million squats or something. You picking up what I’m putting down? If you’re an avid gym goer and also Mac & Cheese lover…what are your thoughts on this conundrum?

Dessert: Well…after two bowls of Mac & Cheese I thought this ooey gooey brownie leftover from the weekend was the perfect nightcap before I fell into a food coma…and promptly went to sleep at 9:00pm.

So, what is your favorite thing you’ve eaten this week? Are you a mac & cheese-aholic? What’s your secret to your favorite mac & cheese? Would you rather eat something unhealthy on a day where you DO or DON’T workout?

Hey dudes!! A very happy Wednesday to you!! This Wednesday is particularly happy for me because I only have 1 work day left this week and tomorrow I get to see Bill, Susan, annnd MY MOMMA!!!Woot!!! I’m so very excited for this weekend!!!!

Imma keep my intro pretty short this week, because, well, the post itself is prettttty lengthy. You’re a real trooper if you actually red the whole thing…but here it goes!! I present to you my road trip and eats from South Carolina. As always, shout out to Jenn at Peas and Crayons for hosting!!!

Breakfast on the Road: We’ve road tripped with Johnny’s parents before and it’s pretty safe to say that we are guaranteed to stop at McDonalds several times for coffee/breakfast/etc. Although I’m pretty okay eating a McDonald’s oatmeal or evvvvvvvvven an Egg McMuffin on a rare occasion I decided not to mess around this trip. I planned ahead to make sure Johnny and I had some substantial and nutritous munchies for breakfast and snacks while on this trip!! I will note, however, that I always get a kids chocolate milk at McDonalds. Yes. There is quite a bit of sugar in it. Buuuuuuuuuuut it’s delicious and went to well with what I brought…that is… a huge container of peanut butter (which, I assure you, I took all four days to eat) that I dipped a perfect banana in (because my perfect banana has lots of spots and is super ripe without a speck of green) and a banana chocolate chip protein muffin. Also, McDonalds seems to always oblige when I ask for a coffee cup filled with hot water so I could brew my own decaf green tea in the car. Perfect!!! I also munched on an apple cinnamon rice cake when I was feeling snacky, probably around 11!Lunch: I suggested we stop at Cracker Barrel for lunch on Friday. I knew everyone (that is, Johnny and my in-laws) loves their coffee, plus it was a Friday so we needed to have some meatless options, which I knew they have. Annnnnnnnnd I love looking around the gift shop! I was delighted when I saw their “Wholesome Fixin’s” menu, which provided calorie counts and lighter options. I was super excited to see their Egg n’ Cheese Sliders – eggs over hard with some shredded colby cheese and tomato slices on lil’ whole wheat sandwich thins (it also comes with mayo, which I cannot for the life of me understand!!) and a wee cup of fresh fruit. We were already in North Carolina at this point in time, having hit the road at 3:00am, so it was getting hot out, too, so this was the peeerrfect lite lunch for me to enjoy!!Starbucks:So, funny story. I’ve mentioned before in a few of my bumpdates that I swear by my Bella Band. I have yet to purchase a pair of maternity pants and the Bella Band helps me keep all of my pants up! Well, I wore it with my work pants on Thursday, went to the gym, and wound up throwing it in the laundry hamper bundled with my black pants instead of packing it. I’m thankful I remembered while we were driving!! Soooo we made a pitstop at the local Target so I could pick up another one (now I have one in black and in white, which is nice because a lot of my shirts are lighter colors and you could see the black right through it). Obviously, since we stopped at target, I had to grab an iced-decaf-tall-nonfat-latte-in-a-grande-cup-with-extra-ice-and-1-splenda. And obviously I had no choice but to take a photo of myself drinking it. Hehe.

So at this point. We arrived!! We said our hellos to the fam!! Lots of baby talk. Lots of baseball talk (as all 5 of Johnny’s cousins are boys…who play baseball). Lots of lounging. I took a nice long shower (I don’t know about you, but after a day of sitting in the warm car I LOVE taking a nice, COOL shower and just standing there until I feel like moving. Johnny thinks I’m nuts. But cool showers rock!) and got settled in and had a nice dinner that included salmon, baked potatoes, corn, and green beans. We hung out on the covered patio for most of the night chatting and catching up before we hit the hay pretty early since we had such a long day!!

Saturday was the Flower Festival. It’s just a big ol’ street fair with lots of vendors and LOTS of people. This year Johnny and I splurged just a wee bit on some fancy schmancy oil and vinegar from a local vendor, The Crescent Olive. We sampled a whole bunch (like Chipotle Oil and Pineapple Vinegar) and they were all fantastic, but we wound up buying a bottle of Tuscan Herb Olive Oil and Fig Balsamic Vinegar. (FIG BALSAMIC IS LIFE CHANGINGGGGGG!) We also wound up snagging a pint of local strawberries that looked soooo tasty I couldn’t say no to them, and an avocado so I could whip up a tasty salad for lunch. Leave it to me to go to a street fair and buy nothing but food…that I can cook when I get home. Lol.

Lunch: We were pretty hungry when we got back from the Flower Fest as it was suuuuuuuuuuuuper hot and humid outside. I made an AMAZING salad for lunch though. I took some organic mixed greens, the local strawberries, some avocado, and some of the previous evening’s leftover salmon and drizzled it with a little bit of the herb oil and fig vinegar. My goodness. I loved everything about this salad. Sure…I would have loved a gyro or something like that from the street fair…but this salad was so worth waiting until I got home to eat!!

After lunch, we took a nice long walk around the neighborhood (we really did just spend the majority of our trip walking…or eating). There is a huuuuge treehouse at the end of the block with some swings and such. Swinging is my happy place. Seriously. It just makes me so happy!!

I was actually pretty pooped after our walk – my hands also blew up like balloons. I thought maybe it was a pregnancy thing until Johnny and his dad said the same thing happens to them in the humidity. Dang it was unpleasant. I wound up taking a nice nap before dinner.

Dinner: We ate dinner at a place called The Icehouse. Johnny’s Aunt Amy and Uncle Kevin are big fans, so all 15 of us trucked on over for dinner. I started off with a “caprese salad”. I use the quotes because, although it was tasty, it was really just a mixed green salad with a few tomatoes and some mozzarella tossed in. But it’s totally okay – because my meal was perfection. Shrimp. And. Grits. Actually – their version of Shrimp and Grits may be my favorite to date!! It’s not that I don’t like super creamy grits, it’s that I don’t typically like the ratio of grits to everything else (too much grits, not enough everything else. spoken like a true northerner, I’m sure!). This was so delicious!! It was a “fried grit cake” so it was a bit crispy on the outside and nice and creamy on the inside, topped with shrimp, andoullie sausage, mushrooms, green onions, and some cheese. I ate every bite. Johnny loved his meal too, and who wouldn’t?? He totes carbed out and got friend chicken with mashed potatoes and mac and cheese. OoOoOo and Johnny’s Aunt Maria got cornbread that came with this spicy honey that I could bathe in. Seriously. The fried chicken IN the spicy honey…oh heavens…ridiculous.

Dessert: After a dinner like that I didn’t want anything for dessert at the restaurant. Grandma Yoder is a BIG fan of having a nice mexican or irish coffee after dinner, though, so she had a pretty steady supply of Ready Whip at home. At about 9 when we were all just chatting on the patio again I sliced up a few more strawberries and added a healthy does of whipped cream…because I was on vacation…duh…and YUM!

Sunday was spent mostly walking around Charleston. There’s a fun market there we went to, we walked along the water front, annnnnnnnnnnd I got Nutella gelato. Weee!!!!

On the Road Home: It was poooouring rain during the drive home, which ya know, as a passenger isn’t really a big deal, we all really just wanted to get home. We made a quick pitstop for lunch at Wawa and grabbed it to go. I was surprised to see a Wawa that far south, but whateves…I was good with it. I’m still funny with meat sometimes, lately, especialllllly the processed icky kind that you’ll most likely get at a Wawa or what-have-you…so I opted for a cheese quesadilla with some pico and avocado. I also snagged an almond cocoloco chobani flip because they’re deliciousssssss!!Our Last Pitstop: It was about 3:00 on Monday when we made our last pitstop at a Dunkin Donuts for coffee and to pee (which, btw, wasn’t as bad as I anticipated. woot!). It was so dreary out and smelled so coffeelicious in there that I couldn’t not snag a decaf toasted almond coffee with some milk and sugar. Noms!!Dinner(After scouring the pantry): I really didn’t feel like getting take out Monday night after all of the food we ate out over the weekend, so I looked around to see what I could whip up. What did I find? A box of pasta, a can of tomato paste, some bacon in the freezer, half a bag of spinach, and parmesan cheese.I was totally good with this. So cozy and homey after being on the road. We ended our evening snuggling with our little Quincy and watching the Game of Thrones premier!!!!!

Hey ya’ll!! So happy it’s finally Wednesday, wouldn’t you agree?! I’m terribly sorry for my lack of posts this last week. It’s been a pretty busy time – and I know it’s just going to get busier in the coming months!! When I get busy…I get stuck in food ruts!! Do you have the same problem? It’s a little disappointing that I was on such a roll posting a new recipe every week and then *BAM* the busy hit and it’s just sooooo much easier to plan meals that are tried and true rather than trying to get creative. On this week’s menu I’ve got all of my fallbacks – chicken fajitas, teriyaki tilapia with brown rice and salad, and chicken pesto tortilla pizzas. Of course I’m pretty lucky to only have to prepare dinner for the hubs and I a mere three nights this week – because Friday we’re leaving for South Carolina!! Woot!!! I am so excited to get our mini vaca on (I am less excited for the car ride and the amount of times I will need to stop to pee.)

As usual, a big thank you goes out to Miss Jenn at Peas and Crayons for hosting this linkup every week. Time for the foods (albeit pretty standard and what I’ve been eating lots of lately) I ate this Monday!

Breakfast: Another one of my fallbacks, banana chocolate chip protein muffins. I made a double batch so we can take some on the road with us this weekend, too! Though I’m getting to a point where I’m so effing hungry all the time that these guys only fill me up until about 9:30 before I want to snack and I used to be able to make it to 10. I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the baby growing in my belly. I’m also pretty sure she loves these muffins, because after I eat them she usually does a little dance for about a half hour or so. I also had some decaf earl gray in my Charleston Tea Plantation mug to prepare for the weekend!!

Snack: My first snack of the day was a hard-boiled egg and some 2% pepperjack. This particular photo is NOT recycled. I do actually always make a smiley face with this snack…because why not?

Snack Again: Still hungry? Yes! At about 11 I munched on a gala apple.

Lunch: I made up a batch of my ravioli minestrone last Thursday maybe…either way…it was a big batch and I’m still enjoying the leftovers. This bowl was sans the ravioli with a little parmesan on top and probably more red pepper flakes than I needed, but it was delightful!

Delicious Beverage: As the weather is finally getting enjoyable, Johnny and I took a walk to the nearest coffee shop on our lunch break on Monday and I snagged my first iced coffee of the season! Just a decaf one with a wee bit of half and half and some sugar! Perfect!!

Snack: There have been times when I’ve asked myself over the last 30 weeks if I reaaaaally think I’m going to be a good mom. When I think about it, it’s so terrifying and exciting all at the same time. I feel like most great things are. (Like roller coasters!) Generally, I do. I think I’m going to be a pretty awesome Mom, actually. And I know that my hubalub is going to be an amazing Dad. I’ve already determined that my baby girl will lovingly be referred to as a number of food items as I’ve already started calling her “muffin” and “pumpkin” and “cupcake” when I talk to my belly. When I do have a moment of doubt, though, I remind myself that if I make snacks this pretty for myself – I’m going to make awesome snacks for my kids. Lol.

Snack: Carrots and hummus to tide me over.

Dinner: Johnny went out on Monday night so dinner was all up to me! I made myself a SEAT! Spinach, Egg, Avocado, and Tomato sandwich!! I found out at my last doctor’s appointment that I’m slightly anemic and I need to start taking iron supplements in addition to my prenatal vitamins. Although my diet is already fairly high in iron, it’s much higher in calcium, which can hinder iron absorption. I’ve been doing what I can since I found out to eat as many iron rich foods (like spinach and egg yolks!) as I can to make my body happier. I wilted two giant handfuls of spinach down in a small skillet and added two whole eggs that I cooked over hard. I plopped my spinachy eggs on some whole wheat toast with avocado and tomato slices. It was soooooooooooo delicious!! Sure, it’d probably be even better with bacon and cheddar cheese (but what wouldn’t be, really?), but I was trying to stay on board the health train.

Dessert:And obviously my day isn’t complete without sometttthing a little sweet to cap it all off. More peanut butter greek yogurt with chocolate chips please. Yes, the photo IS recycled….but that’s because I was too busy watching Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part II on ABC Family to bother snapping a photo of my snack when I had this perfectly good photo to reuse.

So that’s all she wrote, folks!! Next week I’ll be sharing some of my eats from my trip to SC!

What are your favorite snacks to bring on a road trip??
When you go out to eat on vacation, do you try to keep it healthy or do you prefer to indulge?
Are you a sucker for a Harry Potter weekend on ABC Family like me? Or can you resist?!

Good morning, all!! I hope you’ve had a great week so far!! Happy First Day of Spring!!!

Does anyone have any exciting plans for the weekend??

We’re finally painting the nurseryyyyyyyyy!!!!!!! Eeeeeee!!!!!!!

Seriously, this pregnancy is going by so fast. Today I am officially in my third trimester!! WTF?! (I’ll be posting a bUmPdate tomorrow for anyone interested.) Little miss Emma is going to be here before I know it and I genuinely cannot put into words how excited I am to meet my little yogi! 😀 😀 😀

Today I’m pleased to share with you a super delicious muffin recipe I came up with this week that tastes just like the fall…right in time for spring!! Ha. Oh well. It was so rainy and chilly at the beginning of the week that I felt like the warm spices would do me some good…and I was right…because these muffins rock. They’re dense and chewy from the oats with a tiny bit of sweetness from the apples and brown sugar. You’ll notice that there is no butter or oil or added fat at all in these muffins either! That’s because flax seeds are high in omega-3 fatty acids (which, as a momma-to-be, are essential to my diet!)! I promise these muffins are still perfectly moist without any additional fat. I guess, technically, these are more like little baked oatmeals than muffins but tomato-tomatoe. I’ve also included some alternative ingredients to keep these both gluten free and vegan if you so desire. Please note, though, that the nutrition facts I’ve included at the bottom are for the recipe as it is written below.

These muffins freeze really well, too! Just pop it in the microwave to thaw and heat through and you’ve got breakfast in no time!! I’ve been serving mine up this week with some cinnamon cream cheese wedges from the laughing cow. I’m obsessed. They’re 35 calories of delicious, cheesy, noms!!!

Also, you may be wondering why on earth I’d photograph my breakfast on a Pampered Chef catalog? Silly me. That’s because I’ve started my own Pampered Chef business!!! I was a consultant a few years back and I loooved it, but I had a hard time keeping in touch with my recruiter who was based out of Baltimore. Not convenient. I just kind of decided on a whim that now is as good of a time as any to start throwing parties for people and earning them free and discounted products…because come on now…who doesn’t love free stuff?! Especially free KITCHEN stuff. OOoooooo man I’m just too excited. I know that I’ve already picked out at least a dozen products that I can’t wait to earn for myself…and I’m looking forward to helping other folks do the same!! (My mother-in-law is dying for the executive cookware set!) If you’re in Central PA and you’d be interested in hosting a show – please feel free to contact me!!! If you’re not in Central PA and you’d like to host a catalog show – go ahead and contact me, too!!

Last, but certainly not least, don’t forget to grab a badge and link up with your favorite real food recipe, today!!

Hehehehe. Gosh I just love, Stitch! He’s my fave! He reminds me of my husband and my dog if they were combined into a single being…take that however you want it. Ha!

Anywho, I’m so happy it’s finally Wednesday!!! It’s been a pretty productive week for me so far, which is probably why this is my first post of the week!! Oops!! I had a loooovely weekend in New Jersey, a doctor’s appointment on Monday. (I took my glucose test and they took some of my blood and I DID NOT pass out. That’s two times in a row now where I’ve gotten my blood taken without passing out. I may very well be an adult just yet.), and had a pretty solid workout on Tuesday night. In fact, I’ll discuss that a bit more in a few because this week I’m sharing my TUESDAY eats!

Thanks to Jenn at Peas and Crayons for the link up party!! Here’s to the last What I Ate Wednesday of Winter (because it’s officially Spring tomorrow no matter what the weather man says)!!! HUZZAH!!!

Breakfast: Breakfast for me yesterday was the same Berry Ginger Chia Smoothie I linked to a few weeks ago. It’s so effing delicious I didn’t care how cold it was outside. I enjoyed it with a big old mug of decaf green tea!

Snack: My first snack of the day was an Apple Walnut Flax Muffin (recipe tomorrow!!) and I had it around ten. It’s soooo perfectly moist and nutty and cinnamony! I was hungry again around 11, so I nommed on an apple, served on my belly which seems to be getting bigger every day! I will be 28 weeks pregnant tomorrow and that is so crazy!!! I’ve even started to notice my belly wiggling around like jello when the little munchkin in there does her kung-fu! It makes me giggle. Every single time. Even if it’s inappropriate. Like in a meeting at work. Oops! If I don’t make eye contact hopefully no one will notice my giant goofy smile!

Lunch: For lunch yesterday I heated 3oz of shredded chicken in the microwave until it was nice and warm and then I mixed it up with about 1/3 of an avocado and a squeeze of lime juice. I smushed it all in a toasted whole wheat pita with some thin sliced red onion and crisp romaine lettuce. I’m usually all about spinach, but I really wanted the texture of the lettuce in this! Ya gotta change things up a little here and there, right? Right!

Snack: So thanks in large part to some fabulous strawberries I had over the weekend (that Susan so kindly provided me) – they are all I want to eat lately. I pretty much invented the best snack ever yesterday with some strawberries I had. I spread them with a cinnamon cream cheese laughing cow cheese wedge, and then rolled them in crushed pistachios. Sweet. Creamy. Salty. Perfect. Seriously. It’s going to be an issue if and when I run out of these ingredients.

More Snacks: Well my tummy started rumbling agaiiiin around 4, so I had some roasted garlic hummus with about 8 baby carrots and 3 triscuits. I brought more with me, but after munching on all of that I decided that my belly was happy and I tucked the rest away for another day.

Dinner: I had a pretty decent workout last night, focusing primarily on my biceps and back…but I threw in some random chest presses. Oh well. I also did a 20 minute walking interval on the treadmill. Sigh. I am really looking forward to being able to run again this summer! I wanted to make sure I got my protein on when I got home, but also didn’t feel like making a big elaborate dinner. Lately, when I’m doing my meal planning, I always have an “empty” weeknight slot where I just make eggs and toast. Last night was that night. Johnny gets 2 whole eggs plus 2 egg whites, 2 slices of american cheese, and 2 slices of whole wheat toast with some smart balance with omerga 3s. I made myself an omlette with 1 whole egg and 2 egg whites whipped up with some skim milk with red onion, portobello mushroom, spinach, and 2% mozzarella cheese. I had it with 2 slices of smart balancy toast, too. It was exactly what I needed!!

Dessert: Of course my life isn’t complete without dessert these days!I’m really hoping to break this habit once baby is born and I’m less hungry all the time. Of all the desserts I could have though, I don’t feel bad about this one…particularly because sometimes I eat it for breakfast!! It’s just 1/2 cup of plain nonfat greek yogurt with 1 (okay 1 HEAPING) tablespoon of peanut butter with some chocolate chips on top!! I love everything about it!! And obviously I’m feeding my muscles with more protein…and my baby with chocolate chips. Nom!!

So dudes..what’s the BEST thing you ate this week so far? I’m still reveling in my snack invention glory.
What’s your favorite omelet filling?